Hi,
I have been asked for the rationale for repeating a DC element rather than
putting multiple values in one occurence of an element. This is not
something I have thought about in terms of stating a general principle and
cannot find any specific information.
My thoughts are: firstly you would repeat an element if you wanted to enter
values of different types i.e. qualify the element with a scheme. For
example - DC.Subject expressed as LCSH and a repeat for DDC. If the value
of DC.Subject were simply going to be several keywords then repeats would be
superfluous and all the words could go in one instance of the element.
A second reason for using repeats could be where the values of an element
need to be clearly differentiated because they refer to entities that are
different in their own right - e.g. several Creators.
Finally, there may well be implementation specific reasons - for example the
data structures in a source database that is being used to generate DC may
lend themsleves to repeats rather than concatenation of values. This could
also apply in reverse if the DC metadata was being designed with a view to
conversion to another metadata format.
In terms of general principles that is as far as I have got. I'd be grateful
for any insights anyone else may have.
Thanks,
Robina
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Robina Clayphan
National Bibliographic Service
The British Library
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